“To suggest it represents a ‘betrayal’ grossly distorts Labour’s position and is deeply unhelpful to those seeking a solution to an an issue that is reaching crisis proportions,” he told the Guardian.

McCluskey met around two dozen MPs in the House of Commons on Tuesday, where he voiced fears about the impact that backing a second Brexit vote would have on Labour.

The private intervention comes at a fractious time for the party, as the leadership agonises over what its tactics should be if Theresa May loses a vote on the Brexit deal in parliament.

McCluskey is an influential figure in the party and several of Corbyn’s most trusted staff are former Unite members and close to the union leader, including the party’s general secretary, Jennie Formby, the adviser Andrew Murray and the chief of staff, Karie Murphy.

Yet among those around Corbyn there is an intense struggle over whether the party should consider moving towards a “people’s vote”.

MPs from the Unite group in parliament met on Tuesday evening at the invitation of McCluskey. Some agreed with his reservations, a source in the meeting said, with three arguing forcefully in favour of a second vote.

McCluskey said he believed Labour MPs would need to eventually back some version of a Brexit deal, sources said.

One MP in the room said the meeting was informal and a chance for McCluskey to give his “view of the world”, but that they had been struck by the strength of his scepticism about another referendum.

Mays deal fails, and she doesn't get to go back to the EU for whatever reason.Government takes control.They do for a Norway deal, the EU says no.The courts uphold that the UK can't crash out on No Deal.Leaving only an election or a referendum.

Unless something extroidinary happens, I can't see how else it can go down. A leadership change won't change anything, because a Brexiteer PM is even LESS likely to get parliament to sign a deal, and they will prevent a no deal. Its up to the Conservatives whether they want to collapse or end up triggering a second referendum. I personally think they will take the former route, but Labour are only flip flopping because they think Norway is still a possibility, and very soon it will be totally off the table when the EU know that they cannot no deal!

Roll on May's defeat. So much listening to people like Boris etc who right now couldnt be more irrelevant. What is interesting is May, the whips, the DUP and Labour.

Mays deal fails, and she doesn't get to go back to the EU for whatever reason.Government takes control.They do for a Norway deal, the EU says no.The courts uphold that the UK can't crash out on No Deal.Leaving only an election or a referendum.

Unless something extroidinary happens, I can't see how else it can go down. A leadership change won't change anything, because a Brexiteer PM is even LESS likely to get parliament to sign a deal, and they will prevent a no deal. Its up to the Conservatives whether they want to collapse or end up triggering a second referendum. I personally think they will take the former route, but Labour are only flip flopping because they think Norway is still a possibility, and very soon it will be totally off the table when the EU know that they cannot no deal!

Roll on May's defeat. So much listening to people like Boris etc who right now couldnt be more irrelevant. What is interesting is May, the whips, the DUP and Labour.

I assume you mean a variation on the Norway deal? Otherwise why would the eu say no to a copy of the Norway deal? It solves the border issue but would mean free movement.

Mays deal fails, and she doesn't get to go back to the EU for whatever reason.Government takes control.They do for a Norway deal, the EU says no.The courts uphold that the UK can't crash out on No Deal.Leaving only an election or a referendum.

Unless something extroidinary happens, I can't see how else it can go down. A leadership change won't change anything, because a Brexiteer PM is even LESS likely to get parliament to sign a deal, and they will prevent a no deal. Its up to the Conservatives whether they want to collapse or end up triggering a second referendum. I personally think they will take the former route, but Labour are only flip flopping because they think Norway is still a possibility, and very soon it will be totally off the table when the EU know that they cannot no deal!

Roll on May's defeat. So much listening to people like Boris etc who right now couldnt be more irrelevant. What is interesting is May, the whips, the DUP and Labour.

I assume you mean a variation on the Norway deal? Otherwise why would the eu say no to a copy of the Norway deal? It solves the border issue but would mean free movement.

The EU don't particularly like the Norway deal as is, and Norway don't want the UK getting it as it means the UK would basically take over as the big player of the EFTA and Norway has to agree for us to get it.

Mays deal fails, and she doesn't get to go back to the EU for whatever reason.Government takes control.They do for a Norway deal, the EU says no.The courts uphold that the UK can't crash out on No Deal.Leaving only an election or a referendum.

Unless something extroidinary happens, I can't see how else it can go down. A leadership change won't change anything, because a Brexiteer PM is even LESS likely to get parliament to sign a deal, and they will prevent a no deal. Its up to the Conservatives whether they want to collapse or end up triggering a second referendum. I personally think they will take the former route, but Labour are only flip flopping because they think Norway is still a possibility, and very soon it will be totally off the table when the EU know that they cannot no deal!

Roll on May's defeat. So much listening to people like Boris etc who right now couldnt be more irrelevant. What is interesting is May, the whips, the DUP and Labour.

I assume you mean a variation on the Norway deal? Otherwise why would the eu say no to a copy of the Norway deal? It solves the border issue but would mean free movement.

The EU don't particularly like the Norway deal as is, and Norway don't want the UK getting it as it means the UK would basically take over as the big player of the EFTA and Norway has to agree for us to get it.

I think if we said we wanted the same deal as Norway the EU would agree to it straight away but I don't ever see us asking for the identical deal. We are always going to try have a slightly different deal and that's not going to be agreed to easily.

The only way I could see us asking for the same deal is if it was decided that it would be a stop gap whilst a different arrangement was negotiated. Again I don't believe the EU would want this as they want something arranging that is seen as 'permanent' or at least for the foreseeable future.

What I would have liked to have seen was the government just come out two years ago and say that when we leave the EU we will drop down to EFTA membership with EEA access for a period of time whilst we look to negotiate a new arrangement. Would that not have solved all the short term problems. Especially if it was spelled out as the plan. Obviously not for idiots like Mogg as he would claim that it's a plan to leave us in but just ignore him. May should have to just switched on repeat answer mode and stated repeatedly that we have officially left the EU as per the referendum result every time someone complained that the will of the people had been ignored etc..

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:What I would have liked to have seen was the government just come out two years ago and say that when we leave the EU we will drop down to EFTA membership with EEA access for a period of time whilst we look to negotiate a new arrangement. Would that not have solved all the short term problems.

You may call that a 'short term' problem but it would be a catastrophic short term problem that would damage the UK economy in the long term.

Mays deal fails, and she doesn't get to go back to the EU for whatever reason.Government takes control.They do for a Norway deal, the EU says no.The courts uphold that the UK can't crash out on No Deal.Leaving only an election or a referendum.

Unless something extroidinary happens, I can't see how else it can go down. A leadership change won't change anything, because a Brexiteer PM is even LESS likely to get parliament to sign a deal, and they will prevent a no deal. Its up to the Conservatives whether they want to collapse or end up triggering a second referendum. I personally think they will take the former route, but Labour are only flip flopping because they think Norway is still a possibility, and very soon it will be totally off the table when the EU know that they cannot no deal!

Roll on May's defeat. So much listening to people like Boris etc who right now couldnt be more irrelevant. What is interesting is May, the whips, the DUP and Labour.

Norway cannot happen unless we accept free movement. The Tories are never going to flip around to saying we should accept it, they’ve been banging the “immigration is too high!” drum for a long long time now.

I think an election is far more likely than a referendum, the Tories cannot push for another referendum after all the recent rhetoric. Labour might go for it, but they’d still need to win an election. And then we’d have to win the referendum if Labour called it.

And the clock is ticking, no deal doesn’t need anybody to go for it, it just needs Parliament to be unable to agree.

Mays deal fails, and she doesn't get to go back to the EU for whatever reason.Government takes control.They do for a Norway deal, the EU says no.The courts uphold that the UK can't crash out on No Deal.Leaving only an election or a referendum.

Unless something extroidinary happens, I can't see how else it can go down. A leadership change won't change anything, because a Brexiteer PM is even LESS likely to get parliament to sign a deal, and they will prevent a no deal. Its up to the Conservatives whether they want to collapse or end up triggering a second referendum. I personally think they will take the former route, but Labour are only flip flopping because they think Norway is still a possibility, and very soon it will be totally off the table when the EU know that they cannot no deal!

Roll on May's defeat. So much listening to people like Boris etc who right now couldnt be more irrelevant. What is interesting is May, the whips, the DUP and Labour.

Norway cannot happen unless we accept free movement. The Tories are never going to flip around to saying we should accept it, they’ve been banging the “immigration is too high!” drum for a long long time now.

I think an election is far more likely than a referendum, the Tories cannot push for another referendum after all the recent rhetoric. Labour might go for it, but they’d still need to win an election. And then we’d have to win the referendum if Labour called it.

And the clock is ticking, no deal doesn’t need anybody to go for it, it just needs Parliament to be unable to agree.

If they legally can't leave on No Deal, the clock is kinda irrelevant. We are guaranteed a can-kick/withdrawal of Article 50 before that regardless.

Also, the Tories no longer really control these negotiations. It doesn't matter what the Tory stance was as much now, they won't be fully controlling negotiations.

Thats not cheery eyed optimism, thats the reality of the situation. The big unknown factor is the Labour Party, what will they actually push for when they hold the cards? They could be equally as useless, we'll just have to see.

The one thing I feel is 95% certain at this point is No Deal is dead, even if everyone fails to agree something. Its not helpful to keep pushing that, because I just don't think thats the new reality of the situation. Its fun to talk of a ticking time bomb, but that's whats going to push one of the other options (welection, can kick, referndum) into action and not be the cause of an auto-no deal.

Mays deal fails, and she doesn't get to go back to the EU for whatever reason.Government takes control.They do for a Norway deal, the EU says no.The courts uphold that the UK can't crash out on No Deal.Leaving only an election or a referendum.

Unless something extroidinary happens, I can't see how else it can go down. A leadership change won't change anything, because a Brexiteer PM is even LESS likely to get parliament to sign a deal, and they will prevent a no deal. Its up to the Conservatives whether they want to collapse or end up triggering a second referendum. I personally think they will take the former route, but Labour are only flip flopping because they think Norway is still a possibility, and very soon it will be totally off the table when the EU know that they cannot no deal!

Roll on May's defeat. So much listening to people like Boris etc who right now couldnt be more irrelevant. What is interesting is May, the whips, the DUP and Labour.

Norway cannot happen unless we accept free movement. The Tories are never going to flip around to saying we should accept it, they’ve been banging the “immigration is too high!” drum for a long long time now.

I think an election is far more likely than a referendum, the Tories cannot push for another referendum after all the recent rhetoric. Labour might go for it, but they’d still need to win an election. And then we’d have to win the referendum if Labour called it.

And the clock is ticking, no deal doesn’t need anybody to go for it, it just needs Parliament to be unable to agree.

If they legally can't leave on No Deal, the clock is kinda irrelevant. We are guaranteed a can-kick/withdrawal of Article 50 before that regardless.

Also, the Tories no longer really control these negotiations. It doesn't matter what the Tory stance was as much now, they won't be fully controlling negotiations.

Thats not cheery eyed optimism, thats the reality of the situation. The big unknown factor is the Labour Party, what will they actually push for when they hold the cards? They could be equally as useless, we'll just have to see.

The one thing I feel is 95% certain at this point is No Deal is dead, even if everyone fails to agree something. Its not helpful to keep pushing that, because I just don't think thats the new reality of the situation. Its fun to talk of a ticking time bomb, but that's whats going to push one of the other options (welection, can kick, referndum) into action and not be the cause of an auto-no deal.

You can’t legally leave on no deal? You also can’t have a deal without people agreeing to a deal. And any legal situation can be changed by Parliament.

No deal is far from dead and it’s not even completely in Parliament’s hands. If Parliament can’t agree a deal, then it’s no deal. If the EU reject Parliaments ideas for a deal, then it’s no deal.

No deal can happen unless Parliament agrees. If Parliament doesn’t agree a deal then the only option (assuming we leave) is no deal or an extension on Article 50 (if the EU agree).